Juozas Gabrys-Paršaitis

Juozas Gabrys-Paršaitis (born February 22, 1880 Garliava in Lithuania , † July 26, 1951 in Corsier-sur-Vevey in Switzerland ) was a Lithuanian politician, lawyer and publicist.

Life

Study time

Juozas Gabrys-Paršaitis attended elementary school in Garliava from 1887. At the age of 21 he was imprisoned for 6 months for Lithuanian propaganda and then began to study law at the University of Odessa in 1901 . During the time of the Russian Revolution in 1905 he returned to Lithuania and took over the function of 3rd secretary in the short-term formed Grand Seimas in Vilnius. He became a member of the Lietuvių demokytojų sąjunga - the Liberal Democratic Party of Lithuania (LDP), founded in 1905 . He organized his participation in the newspaper publisher "Vilniaus Zinios", wrote articles, participated in the founding of the Lithuanian School Teachers Association in August and was elected chairman in December 1905 when the Peasant Union was founded. On these events he wrote in his diary: "It was good that our nation's renewed strength was revealed in Russia during the first revolution of 1905. (...) But we were still buried under double oppression, Polish and Russian". When the intense persecution of the revolutionary-democratic forces began in 1906, he had to leave the country and continued his law studies at the University of Lausanne and later Odessa, where he received his doctorate in 1907 .

Commitment to freedom and human rights for Lithuania

After graduating, Gabrys went into exile in Paris. and made his first trip to America by September 1907. He then wrote articles, edited publications and prepared platforms for specific groups to activate and support the national forces of Lithuania. In 1911 he took part in the Race Congress in London. Together with the French journalist Jan Pelissier (1883–1939) he founded the “Office Central des Nationalites” in October 1911 and in 1912 the “Union des Nationalites”. Both organizations working for Lithuania served the exchange of information with the other European countries, which informed them about the activities of Lithuania in the fight for freedom and human rights.

He published his first book in 1911 and from March 1912 the first edition of the magazine "Annales des Nationalités" was published. In the same year he took part in the 19th World Peace Congress in Geneva as a representative of his country . A trip to Russia followed in 1913 and a second trip to America in 1914, during which he took part in the US-Lithuanian Congress in Chicago . With Gabry's participation, the Lithuanian National Fund “Tautos Fonda” and the Lithuanian National Council “Tautos Taryba” were founded. In December 1914 he traveled back to Paris via England.

In the first World War

Despite the changed framework conditions caused by the First World War, he continued to strive to unite the national forces of Lithuania and to find allies for this purpose - also in other countries. B. with this goal he undertook a trip to Rome in 1915.

At the beginning of 1915 the first issue of the magazine "Pro Lithuania" appeared under his editorship. In June the 2nd Nationality Congress took place in Paris. Due to the events of the war and the difficult contact and travel opportunities, he moved to Lausanne in the same year and continued his activities there. In August 1915 there was a meeting with the secret legation councilor of the German embassy in Bern, Gisbert von Blomberg, and an understanding about the mutual interests. Von Blomberg forwarded the information received from Gabrys to Berlin. Gabrys was one of the organizers of the Lithuanian-Latvian Congress in Bern in August 1915. After the occupation of Vilnius by German troops in September 1915, he traveled to Stockholm in October to found the Swedish-Lithuanian Committee during the Stockholm Conference. Blomberg issued him a laissez-passer in the name of Galeva for a trip to Lithuania . He undertook this trip without Blomberg's knowledge together with the Estonian revolutionary Aleksander Kesküla (1882–1962).

After his return, Gabrys was asked by Wilhelm Steputat  , a liaison officer on the staff of the High Command East between the General Staff and the Foreign Office in Berlin, to speak to Stuttgart . At this meeting on November 9, 1915, Gabrys declared himself ready to work on the side of Germany for the freedom of Lithuania. This cooperation offered by Steputat extended above all to the obligation of propaganda work for Germany and an agitation against Russia in order to drive a wedge between the relations of Russians and Lithuanians. Gabrys was ready to work in Lithuania to win his country as an ally for Germany, for which he was financially compensated. He acted under the cover of "Buyer" and started work in Lithuania in January 1916, organized political campaigns, initiated the first Lithuanian conference and published appeals and journalistic texts, e.g. B. for the camouflaged propaganda magazine from OberOst "Dabartis". He was given 40,000 marks for handing over the protocols of the Lithuanian National Congress.

This cooperation became increasingly difficult after the German military in the occupied part of Lithuania more and more restricted the population through massive reprisals and asserted German power interests. This led Gabrys to stand up for the interests of his compatriots. In articles and radio broadcasts he denounced the occupying mentality. At the beginning of June 1916, the 2nd Lausanne Conference drafted a protest resolution in which the German atrocities in occupied Lithuania were denounced. On June 28, the Lithuanian delegation read out a declaration on the “Restoration of the Independent State of Lithuania” at the 3rd Nationality Congress.

In March 1917, the Executive Committee for the preparation of the "Lithuanian Day" was founded with Gabry's participation. One step towards defusing the ever-expanding conflict was a meeting offered to Gabrys by Matthias Erzberger , the leader of the Center Party in the German Reichstag, in August 1917. Both discussed the difficult situation in Brunnen in Switzerland. Erzberger promised support to the effect that the country would soon be administered by Lithuanians again and that a separate civil administration, the "Taryba", which was created through elections, would be set up.

Despite the renewed backing by the military leadership of OberOst, the election of the Lithuanian National Council took place in autumn 1917. The government was formed by February 1918 and declared its independence on February 16, 1918 without any alliance obligations towards Germany.

Shortly after Germany officially recognized Lithuania's independence on March 25, 1918, Erzberger and Gabrys met for a second time in Bern. Above all, it was explored whether the founded Taryba was capable of acting against the military or whether the appointment of a king would give better chances of power. This proposal was made by Erzberger, who proposed Duke Wilhelm Karl von Urach as a candidate .  Gabrys accepted the offer only with great reluctance and only after the German decision-makers preferred Kaiser Wilhelm II for this office instead of the Duke . But shortly before the formation of a government in Lithuania in November 1918 under Augustinas Voldemaras , there was a break between Gabrys and the Taryba forces active in exile and inland. It became clear that it had succeeded in dividing the national forces in Lithuania.

The time of the Republic of Lithuania

Gabrys-Paršaitis felt at the latest at the 3rd and 4th nationality congresses in Lausanne and Bern, which were organized at the end of 1918, that his activities were hardly receiving any response. After he had written several memoranda about the new situation to European governments and newspaper publishers by the end of December , he stopped publishing the newspapers "Anales des Nationalités" and "Pro Lithuania" and replaced them with the publication of the "Tribune des Nationalités".

In mid-January 1919 there was a meeting in Paris with an official delegation from Lithuania and the forces around Gabrys, he was then accepted as secretary. Just a month later it became clear that the Lithuanian government had only played for time to get him and his Western European activists out of the way. He responded in August with the establishment of the new press agency "Atli", a new newspaper organ for the Lithuanian opposition, and public campaigns against the existing Lithuanian government. In other activities he went so far in the fight against the government as to position himself on the side of the German Freikorps and later also the counter-revolutionary Russian Western Army.

In 1921 Gabrys was proposed and nominated for the office of Prime Minister by the chairman of the Christian Democratic Party. In 1926 he was entrusted with the office of consul in Königsberg by the Christian-Democratic cabinet. With the coup d'état of Augustinas Voldemaras and Antanas Smetona  on December 17, 1926, Lithuania became a dictatorship and Gabrys left his post.

From 1928

As a result of the internal political conditions that had now set in, the national democratic forces in Lithuania fell apart completely. Gabrys-Paršaitis also left the country and resumed his studies in economics at the University of Lausanne in 1928 in exile. He made contact with his former colleague Pelessier; both published a new nationality magazine from 1931 onwards.

But in the completely changed political constellation of Europe it was not possible to re-establish the broad front for Lithuania's national interests that was possible at the beginning of the century. The forced annexation of Lithuania to the USSR in 1940 marked the low point of their efforts, so to speak. It was only after the devastating consequences of the war, in consideration of democratic and national values, that Gabrys succeeded again in 1946 in setting up a new Lithuanian exile organization.

Publications (selection)

• La Nation Lithuanienne. Son État Sous La Domination Russe Et Allemande . Imprimerie de la Cour d'Appel, Paris 1911.
• Carte Ethnograpique de L'Europe 1918. Geographical Institute Kummerly and Frey, Bern 1918.
• Tautos sargyboj. Egzodo archyvas. Ed. Linas Saldukas, Vilnius 2007, ISBN 978-9955-699-54-5 .
• On watch for the nation. Memories. The World War II agent Juozas Gabrys reports (1911–1918). Ed .: Eberhard Demm and Christina Nikolajew, PL Academy Research, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-631-64451-5 .

literature

• Eberhard Demm : Ostpolitik and propaganda in the First World War. Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 978-3-631-36506-9 .
• Eberhard Demm, Christina Nikolajew (ed.): On guard for the nation. Memories. Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-631-64451-5 .
• Abba Stazhas: German Ostpolitik in the First World War. The Ober Ost case 1915–1917. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 1993, ISBN 978-3-447-03293-3 .
• Robert Traba (ed.): Self-confidence and modernization. Social-cultural change in Prussian-Lithuania before and after the First World War. Osnabrück 2000, ISBN 3-929759-44-6 .
• Spencer C. Tucker, Mary Priscilla Roberts: Encyclopedia of the First World War. ABC-Clio Verlag, 2005.

Web links

• Literature by and about Juozas Gabrys-Paršaitis in the bibliographic database WorldCat

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In Lithuania this is the name for the parliament, the legislative assembly - derived from the Polish Sejm - which was spontaneously formed by revolutionary forces during the February events of 1905
2. ↑ Juozas Gabrys-Paršaitis: Memoirs 1911–1914. In: Eberhard Demm, Christina Nikolajew (ed.): On guard for the nation. Memories. Peter Lang GmbH, European Science Publishing House, Frankfurt / Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-631-64451-5 , p. 24f.
3. ↑ Eberhard Demm: Ostpolitik and Propaganda in the First World War. European publishing house of the sciences, Frankfurt / Main 2002, ISBN 3-631-36506-3 , p. 158ff. and p. 163ff.
4. ↑ Eberhard Demm, Christina Nikolajw (Ed.): On guard for the nation. Memories. Peter Lang GmbH, European Science Publishing House, Frankfurt / Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-631-64451-5 , p. 8 and p. 116ff.
5. ^ Spencer C. Tucker and Mary Priscilla Roberts, Encyclopedia of the First World War, ABC-Clio Verlag 2005, pp. 457ff.
6. ↑ Compte rendu analytique - “Mais la Lithuanie, malgré ses souffrances améres, espére fermement obtenir son indépen dance á la fin du conflit actuel” (Summary Report - Despite its bitter suffering, Lithuania is keenly hoping to gain independence at the end of the current conflict ) in: Anales des Nationalites Heft 5, 1916, p. 9ff
7. ↑ Eberhard Demm, Christina Nikolajew (ed.): On guard for the nation. Memories. Peter Lang GmbH, European Science Publishing House, Frankfurt / Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-631-64451-5 , p. 326ff.